'May you live in interesting times.' is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. The expression is ironic. 'Interesting times are usually times of trouble.'
These are interesting times. I’ll give them that. A British General Election with a Prime Minister who is rich as Croesus but looking to blame everyone else but himself and his party for the state of the nation after 14 years of Conservative government.
War on the edge of Europe and a scramble for resources of the kind and in a scale which we've never seen. An American Presidential candidate found guilty on all kinds of criminal charges but still intent on running for President again in his Eighties, and apparently with every chance of getting in.
Never mind about all that. It's my day off. But nevertheless, as I usually do when I'm teaching, I'm up with the larks as the sun breaks through the high Georgian windows of my flat. Play some records. Write some reflections on here. Nothing that particularly grabs my attention today. Sometimes you go through the motions.
Anyway I put Easter by the Patti Smith Group on and run my bath. I had Horses in mind as nothing beats Horses, 'Wild card up my sleeve.'. But any of the first four will do. On the sleeve of Easter, Patti famously flashes a hairy armpit. Yeah. 'Take that Mr Man!' 'Outside of society...'
I get it, but this morning I have to wait. You get your clipboard and pen from the nice lady on the reception desk and have to be patient until your number's called. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. This morning I'm in the Energy queue which moves more slowly than general enquiries and I have to wait the best part of an hour before someone comes for me.
But when someone shows it's worth the wait. An eager young man leads me to a table. I get the feeling he's on the spectrum. But as they say we're all somewhere on that these days and he's ultra efficient and goes through the procedures with impeccable care and attention. A phone call to explore my issues is booked in and I'm on my way. Happy that the matter is being pushed forwards.
The rest of the day is mine. I've noticed that Fievel is Glauque, a band I've praised in the highest terms on here, are playing at Lubber Fiend in the evening. Lubber Fiend is a venue I've heard a lot about but not been to experience for myself . Tonight's the night.
But first the Fitness Centre. Lucy is in reception and she seems a bit glum. There's a hospitality do in the Balmoral Suite at The Royal Station Hotel where the Fitness Centre is. It's being held to make an apology exercise as the centre was closed for a couple of weeks in Spring because there'd been a leak of some sort. Anyway Lucy is worried we're all going to go down there and slag off her and, David, Adam and Jack the other Fitness Centre staff.
Morale is not good here. Even though all the staff here are all great, do their jobs well as far as I can see, and are ceaselessly friendly and polite to customers regardless of how much they hate their jobs. It's The Man again. Everywhere you look these days, you see 'The Man'. Call him Big Brother. Call him Rishi Sunak, a multimillionaire Prime Minister who thinks it's all our fault but still wants our vote. They're everywhere you look. Reject them.
I do half an hour in the sauna. Plunge in the pool at regular intervals. Do a few lengths of the pool. I'm out just as a noisier pair of members turn up and start bellowing like a pair of horny walruses. I've learned my lesson at the Fitness Centre. When these types show, I put my head down and make for the exit.
I'm back home and I've got a bit of time before this free do at the Royal Station Hotel so I watch an Episode of Father Ted. The 'Is Father Ted a Racist.'. I don't know where we're allowed to stand on this episode of classic comedy, twenty five years and more after it.was made. It relaxes me. I post about it on WhatsApp and a friend laughs too. That will do for me.
Tony Bennett's Greatest Hits on my Record Player sets me up in a fantastic mood. Into Royal Station Reception and they direct me towards the Balmoral Suite. The Royal Station I'd guess is the best hotel in Newcaste. I'm sorry I'm not interested in The Hilton and certainly not in Travel Lodges or Premier Inns which don't qualify as hotels in my book. Just rooms you open with a card and pay for with a card.
But The Royal Station offers something more. There are actual people working there. In Reception, in the bar and in the Restaurant. Who will make you feel alive. Queen Victoria stayed here and you can tell. From the majestic hallways, ceilings and chandaliers.
The people who work here are nice. As are the hotel guests. The layout, the grub and the do. I stay for half an hour and chat. About football, weather, holidays the hotel. Then I'm on my way. The daylight is firm but the hour is getting late and it's time to get my phone out, locate the whereabouts of The Lubber Fiend which I've heard so much about. Make my way down there for this evening's entertainment.
It's less than ten minutes from me but I go the wrong way, not helped by misdirection from a well meaning young bloke outside the Alphabetti Theatre and I wander down to Newcastle College before I realise the error of my ways mentally and turn on my heels and head back in the direction I'd come from with a clear idea of where I need to go.
It's down an unprepossessing back alley of the kind you'd never venture down unless you had specific reason to be here. I love the ritual of making my way to a gig these days. Particularly during the glorious sunny spell we're enjoying at the moment. Whether I'm going to the Sage, The Cobalt Studios, The Black Swan, The Cluny, The Cumberland Arms, The Prohibition Cabaret, The Globe, The Central. Now I can add The Lubber Fiend to the list. I've found another destination. And this is going to be a particularly special and memorable discovery.
'I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiosity and the faint unrecognised apprehension that here at last, I should find tht low hole in the wall, which others I knew had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city.'
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
I make my way up a staircase in total darkness, and find myself in a corridor of equally total darkness. I turn left and I'm in a gender neutral bathroom area. I'm not in need of the loo, or a gender neutral area, so I turn right and make my way to a set of doors. There are a couple of young blokes with headphones around their necks, stood at turntables. I register my confusion and they smile, it obviously happens a lot. They redirect me in friendly manner to the venue's main entrance, another large, forbidding doorway. It seems that I'm here.
I push the door open and find myself at a bar, with two smiling attractive young women behind it. One with dark hair, one a redhead. They are immediately friendly and welcoming. I chat to the redhead about how excited I am to be here to see Fievel Is Glauque. She nods and says she's not surprised. She's seen them soundcheck this afternoon and they are indeed something special. They've gone out just now to check out the vicinity.
I order myself a non-alcoholic beer from the well stocked fridge and make my way to the merch table which is located in front of a comfy sofa. I look around me. It's a reasonably large room.
A DiY music and events space that's been open since May 2022. A dark space but lovingly established, built and decorated by volunteers like the delightful redhead I've just been chatting to. Around the stage sofas and tables with seating and there's a floorspace with wooden floorboards. A saxophonist and drummer have made their way onto it and set off. The evening's entertainment is underway.
I'm immediately blown away. It's one of those Road To Damascus moments I look for when I go out. A Bohemian venue. CBGB'S is always the go to totem for me.The absolute I'm always searching for.
There have been plenty in Newcastle for me. Keith Crombie's Jazz Cafe. The Cooperage at the Quayside. Zerox, which is there now. Cumberland Arms. Now The Lubber Fiend. I'm blessed to live here.
The saxophonist blasts out free-form jazz noise bending and jerking like he's wired to the mains. An apparently Japanese, or possibly Chinese drummer with a scarf wrapped around his head is beating seven levels of shit out of an enormous one man band drum he's carrying on a rope thrown around his neck. He moves onto a relentless tattoo on a chair.
These people are beatniks and this experience is beyond my wildest dreams. I start taking photos and posting them on social media and getting positive responses from friends with similar tastes. 'These people are beatniks. This man is playing a chair,' I squeak on social media posting an accompanying picture.
I'm almost 60 now but that doesn't mean I can't still get excited. Access the inner child. I don't enjoy the drunken state as much as I used to and I'm not really interested in the stoned state anymore either but that doesn't make me any less pleased to come across spaces and gatherings of people like these.
This is the modern condition. I've come alone as I generally do but I'm not alone. This is a friendly youthful place but it's genuinely inclusive and welcoming in a way that modern British corporate spaces cannot dream of and have no right to even make a claim to. This strikes ne as a genuine alternative. A counterculture. Atonal sax and some bloke battering a sensational tattoo out of hastily assembled and convenient drumkits. It doesn't get better than this.
I've had a brief chat to Zak, the brainchild behind Fievel Is Glauque. He's immediately an interesting man with interesting opinions on life and music. I tell him that what I like about his music is that it takes an interesting and original slant. It's not dictated by a given and recieved way of thinking and doing things. Not like a lot of young bands I hear where you find it hard to get past Joy Division. and The Fall. He says he doesn't really care for Joy Division. They're too dark for him. But he does like The Fall. He starts mentioning records by them which he cares for. Not being a huge fan of the band I lose track of his argument. But I don't care if people have the same tastes as me. I appreciate people who put forward their enthusiasms with conviction and have a rationale behind it which they've clearly thought through.
He's a New Yorker with shoulder length untended hair and sturdy glasses. He asks me questions about what I do. I appreciate the fact that he's interested and listens even though he's clearly got a vision and story of his own. It's not an easy world to live in but we're all making our way. We can all guide each other,
Bernice, the next band are on. A threepiece from Toronto with an entrancing tall woman singing. She's immediately transfixing in a wonderfully loose and hippie like manner. The music they come out with definitely has an affecting quality. I feel like I've been transported through some weird Being John Malkovitch portal back to the Sixties. It's a very nice sensation. We're getting back to the Garden.
They play a warm ecletic set. Robin, the leader of the collective plays a recorder. Their set includes an incredible version of Tenderly, the Jazz classic covered memorably in a Punk fashion by Animal of The Muppets. But also by Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole. I can't process what Bernice are doing just yet. But I'm intrigued.. They play a song about deciding to live on a commune and I find it an inspiring idea. 'We are stardust... and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.' It's not actually a quaint idea. It's a potent one.
Bernice finishes the set and comes to the merch table. The rest of the evening I chat to her and she's friendly and generous with her attention. She's got a set of wire John Lennon glasses and she's really rather special. I buy a Fievel Is Glauque t shirt at a reduced price from their singer. She's not that bothered if I pay at all but I give her what I've got. There's such a generous,open, non judgemental approach to everything.
We talk about Joni and what she means to her. Her partner, also in the band come and join us. They wrap themselves around each other. They're very loose, inclusive and self contained people but they're not arrogant, They're on a journey. I'm aware that what I'm writing does not slot in with conventional Punk dictates. The Bobby Gillespie narrative. Kill all Hippies. But frankly I don't buy into that narrative at all.It's all rather me, me, me. There's too much me, me, me these days.
Fievel Is Glauque come on and are enchanting. I direct you to their music. It's really something But I've had my experience for the night and it's been in meeting these people and enjoying this space. I wish them well and head into the night. I've been charmed. Won over.
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